BA Athletics Club News Digest 21st November 2016

Events:

New members and potential members of all fitness levels and abilities are welcome
at all of these events. The full diary of club featured
events is on the club website at:
http://www.barunner.org.uk/Event Diary.shtml. [updated November 4th]

Club's 35th Anniversary event - 21st December

Please remember to notify us that you intend to make it to our anniversary
event - by email,
Facebook, pigeon etc. We need to know for the catering. Not everyone will
be able to make it, but if you can't this could be an opportunity to let the
rest of us know how you are...

Hello to you Rod,

Your BAAC invitation came today, having been re-directed to us from
our previous address; apologies for not replying sooner. We have moved
(just over a year ago) to a village just south of Stroud. Although we
aim to get back to the Berkshire area most weeks, to catch up with
family, I think that the BAAC social on 21st December will be too
difficult to fit in.

We do enjoy reading the regular newsletters....and recognise a fair
few of the names still, so keep up with races, results etc.

Having spent a lot of time on recovering a very overgrown garden
(doing battle with the badgers!) our list of 'things to do' is still
considerably longer than our list of 'things we've done' but
with fabulous countryside around us - a lot of which is National Trust -
the house can wait while we explore!!

We both wish you, and fellow BAAC members all the best.....and if
anyone is ever up this way, we have a great selection of running/walking
paths and challenging off road races waiting to tried out.
I'm getting back into some sort of fitness at last and plan on joining a
local running club in the new year. There's a fairly new parkrun
at Stonehouse, not far from us (others would be Gloucester and Swindon I
think) so who's going to be the first BA runner to do that!?

Our new address is [contact the editor if you want the full address]
Amberley, Stroud GLOS. GL5 5AP....check it out on googlemaps!

Seasons greetings to one and all

Lesley and Mike Macaskill

PS Andy is still at MySportingTimes....they have a great selection of
races/events for something a bit different.

Club parkrun results for Saturday 19th November

Steve's on a boat so not the usual report and some runners and volunteers may
have been missed...

parkrun

Position

Gender Position

parkrunner

Club

Run Time

Comment

Bedfont Lakes parkrun

6

6

Gary RUSHMER

British Airways AC

00:20:11

50th run at Bedfont

Bedfont Lakes parkrun

27

26

Scott DAVISON

British Airways AC

00:23:03

Bedfont Lakes parkrun

33

29

Neil FREDIANI

British Airways AC

00:23:35

Course PB

Bedfont Lakes parkrun

66

13

Caroline COCKRAM

British Airways AC

00:27:28

Bedfont Lakes parkrun

72

57

David DUGGAN

British Airways AC

00:28:18

Bedfont Lakes parkrun

109

77

John LENNON

British Airways AC

00:30:50

Bracknell parkrun

85

77

Lee JENKINS

British Airways AC

00:25:09

Braunstone parkrun

311

108

Sarah GORDON

British Airways AC

00:36:57

Bushy parkrun

342

291

Ian CUNNINGHAM

British Airways AC

00:24:42

East Coast parkrun (Singapore)

37

29

Adrian HAINES

Crawley AC

00:26:44

Guildford

Alastair HESLOP

British Airways AC

Timekeeper

Gunnersbury parkrun

138

119

Piers KEENLEYSIDE

Ealing Eagles RC

00:25:36

Gunnersbury parkrun

257

184

Alan ANDERSON

British Airways AC

00:30:25

Improvement of twenty minutes

Harrow parkrun

40

38

Denis FOXLEY

British Airways AC

00:25:54

Harrow parkrun

126

55

Joan FOXLEY

00:34:50

49th parkrun

Homewood parkrun

52

43

John COFFEY

British Airways AC

00:27:18

Homewood parkrun

67

16

Monica ALONSO

British Airways AC

00:29:09

Homewood parkrun

77

22

Helen SMITH

British Airways AC

00:30:44

Course PB

Old Deer Park parkrun

43

8

Trish MCCABE

British Airways AC

00:27:25

Peckham Rye parkrun

103

31

Emily WARBURTON-BROWN

British Airways AC

00:28:32

Queen Elizabeth Park parkrun

Roderick HOFFMAN

British Airways AC

Barcode Scanning

Reading parkrun

59

57

Christopher T KELLY

British Airways AC

00:23:03

Reading parkrun

143

125

Alan FRIAR

British Airways AC

00:27:29

Sheringham parkrun

48

41

John SCAIFE

Maidenhead AC

00:25:58

New club parkrun

Sunderland parkrun

42

40

Steve DODSWORTH

British Airways AC

00:24:42

Sunderland parkrun

118

22

Linda DODSWORTH

British Airways AC

00:30:41

Wycombe Rye parkrun

252

175

Tony BARNWELL

British Airways AC

00:32:57

One slower result is worthy of an explanation - Adrian Haines popped over to
Singapore from his holiday in Thailand to add his name to the list of club
colleagues who have run at East Coast parkrun. Adrian's approach to
getting to the start for 7am was the same as most of us would be if we were
staying at a hotel near Heathrow or Gatwick - we wouldn't invest a new mortgage
in a taxi fare. So Adrian got up even earlier and jogged the five miles to
the start but took one wrong turn and so ended up getting to the start five
minutes late. The event was underway but he joined in clocking his own
time of 22:06 for the parkrun. Afterwards he jogged back to his hotel - but
deliberately choosing the scenic route so that his training mileage was that of
a half marathon. And this was in Singapore. Let us hope that he is able to
join us there next year for WARR (but we'll pay for the taxi for him - Singapore
taxis are very cheap!).

parkrun Tourism

Three parkruns to report on in this week's parkrun Tourism slot.

Firstly I was at Queen Elizabeth Park where there was a third parkrun Tourist
volunteer takeover. The team of us, 23 in all and with 14 different home
parkruns, took over all of the volunteering duties to enable the regulars to
have a morning off, or even to take in their own parkrun themselves! My
job was barcode scanner and as usual I was relieved when I checked the results
later and saw that all of the recorded times had been successfully matched to
parkrunners (other than the three without barcodes). It made an
interesting morning - most of us knew the course from just one previous run of
it but some had never been there before and had to walk the course after the run
to see what the other corners were like. The runner attendance was more than
doubled from the previous week - but that was only up to 86 and that included
all four tail runners (don't ask).

Now news of the first of two new parkruns - Beckenham Place in south east
London. This much heralded parkrun had asked Tourist parkrunners to give
the inaugural a miss and to a large extent this was heeded - though a small
number felt compelled to maintain their "Lon-Done" status. In all there
were a manageable 193 finishers at the inaugural which based on the size of
nearby parkruns may become a par for the course - although I suspect the
attendance figure is more likely to go up than down next Saturday.

Then we had Cannock Chase in Staffordshire. Again much heralded and this time
they hadn't asked tourists to keep away. This inaugural had a massive 569
finishers - which is roughly 69 more than they had finish barcodes or stopwatch
finish time slots. That puts in the shade this weekend's record turnout at
Gunnersbury of 476 - indeed Cannock Chase had the 7th biggest turnout of all UK
parkruns. The team coped albeit with the use of pen and paper towards the end.
Were tourists responsible for the massive field? No, there were roughly
the same number of tourists as at Beckenham but there were an incredible 220 new
parkrunners! Half the field had done five parkruns or fewer. Having
a few experienced tourists helped the newbies know what to do and also provided
support for the volunteers controlling the finish processes. It'll be
interesting to see how many of the new parkrunners return over the next few
weeks - it does imply that there has been a considerable pent up demand for a
parkrun in the Cannock area.

PS there were ten finishers at parkrun de Montsouris this week, eight
more than for my run the previous week - I'd have struggled to make the top
five.

Roderick Hoffman

The Rowley Report

A little report from the Homewood parkrun on 19th.

My first visit to the venue as a tourist (spectator) with the weather
cold but very sunny. As many club members ran here 2/3 weeks ago
they know the course is mostly tarmac paths although a very undulating
and a nice little challenge. A wonderful course for spectators and
if you can stand at one point you can see the runners pass by six times
if wanting to time them or watching if they slow down or increase their
pace.

We had three members out of the 98 that finished. With local
lad John Coffey running his 5th time over the course was enjoying the
challenge looking quite relaxed to finish 52nd in 27.18 although
28 seconds outside his best of 26.50; Then Monica Alonso making
her second appearance at the venue ran well to increase her position by
8 after the first lap, this was due Monica taking her wet top jacket off
helping her run more freely, and finish 67th in 29.09 (best being
28.50). Then came Helen Smith who today looked more positive
running a pace that suited her and finished running a PB time of 30.44
over the course and finished 77th. Helen had held the 0/60 course
record but a Woking young lady broke it last week - sorry Helen, blame
me.

I loved the place and will return (to watch),

Tom Rowley

25 Years Ago - 100plus countries

Looking through old copies of "Round the Block" I picked up the issue from
November 1991, 25 years ago this month.

Air France had organised a Triathlon in the Reunion Islands and we'd sent a
team of ten including Steve Newell. As a consequence Reunion was
registered as a new "country" the club had run in, and Steve made a side trip to
Djobouti to make another one - the compiled list now had 104 countries in it.
This is the list...

Some of those countries no longer exist but all were judged by the editor to
have existed as the time that a then current club runner claimed to have run in
them. New countries have been added since so I'll quickly say that I can
add one to the list - The Czech Republic, run in on 18th August 2015 as part of
the Ciesyzn parkrun course. Who can add some others?
Mail: Roderick
Hoffman

Other features in the 1991 Newsletter:

There was a promotion for the Christmas Social including a running of
the parkway mile - "please advise Steve Newell of your predicted times". So
some things haven't changed since.

Our ASCA Track and Field team included Janet Smith, Barry Walters and
John Taylor.

The San Francisco WARR results were published - the BA team had 44
finishers in the 10k, led home by Barry Walters in 32:13, and 62 in the 5k,
Barry again in 15.49.

There was a full report of a trip up to Newcastle to run in the Great
North Run - our fastest finisher was Denis Foxley in 1:22. John Coffey
was two minutes behind and well ahead of Frank Bruno who finished in 1:35.

We listed 8 new members and the established members were asked to give
them a warm welcome - so if you meet David Rimmer ask him whether we did.

Running Shorts

Caroline Yarnell

Also a club finisher in the Reunion Islands Triathlon in 1991 the photograph
below shows Caroline at the World Masters Championships in Perth
last week on her way to finishing 3rd in the
Steeplechase. There must be something very special in the water
down-under.

CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR OPENING TIMES HESTON VENUES

Hello,

The Club , Gym and Sportshall will be closed from 6pm 23rd December
2016 and reopened on Tuesday 3rd January 2017.

Kind Regards

Vanessa (BA Clubs Membership Team)

65th Brampton to Carlisle 10 Mile Road Race

Hi guys,

Just to say...

This week's parkrun times were slower than usual due to ice & the fact that
we took part in the "oldest 10 mile race in the UK" on Sunday.

This was a lovely course from Brampton in Cumbria to Carlisle. 677 rather
fast people completed the course. I managed to respectively finish in the top
46% in a PB of 1:15:21 and was rewarded with a lovely commemorative slate
coaster. Linda couldn't take part due to the noisy tenants of a heavy cold.

Regards,

Steven Dodsworth

Subject: Selection Event Volunteers for next year's World Champs

England Athletics / London Sport have been asked by Team London to
help with recruitment for ‘Selection
Event Volunteers’ for next year’s World ParaAthletic Championships
and IAAF World Championships and they are asking us if we have suitable
and interested team members. They have added a
news article to their website that provides more details and the
application process.

Note that this is help for the SELECTION of volunteers, not to be
marshals or the like, so a different angle and perhaps useful experience
for doing similar in the future (and a volunteering job that doesn't
risk you getting wet!). They want people to be involved from 9th
December to 5th March.